Is it really a good idea to introduce normies to socialism with the manifesto, das kapital, etc

When I first came on here more than I year ago that's where I was recommended to start, so that's where I did start. But right from the outset I felt like a lot of this stuff didn't really fully match with my current reality. Like the idea of there being two distinct classes, proles being the only possible revolutionary agent, base over superstructure, everything being centered around economics etc.

But questioning these things makes you an idpol liberal cuck right? So I didn't question

Only until I got the last chapter of the next revolution a couple of months ago, where bookchin critiques the fuck out of anarchism and Marxism I understood that my thoughts were actually not the thoughts of a idpol libcuck. I don't really think I'm a communalist, but that last chapter really stuck

I feel like telling people to go straight into Orthodox Marxism is not a good idea, first we should show how real socialism affects life instead of throwing all this abstract shit that isn't 100% relevant to this day and age

There are books that have been specifically written to introduce politically illiterate liberals to leftism, like Stephanie Mcmillan's Capitalism must die and Jacobins ABCs of Socialism, then you can move on to Marx, etc.

Care to elaborate on this chapter you're talking about?

Yes, but have them read Wage Labor and Capital for Marxism and Malatesta's Anarchy for Anarchism. It's the basics and covers most of the ideas behind theory.

Chapter 9 of "the next revolution" by Murray bookchin. Basically he elaborates the failings of Marxism and anarchism and why either alone isn't enough to be a guiding ideology for a 21st century revolutionary movement

Make sure you guys tell people who are looking to learn to start there because believe it not some people will take "just read das kapital bro" meme seriously

No, I think the Manifesto is kind of dated and lacks important context. While I don't think it should be the first thing, I do think Das Kapital should be one of the earlier things taught or read (not everyone can sit down for that shit though, so emphasis on taught); it is very important to have a foundational understanding of capitalism's contradictions, antagonisms, and weaknesses.

In my experience, without the grounding in materialism that comes with Orthodox Marxism, it all turns to memes.

Orthodox Marxism is itself a meme in the current year

Better memers than tankies and the theory autists who insist everything in das kapital is directly applicable to today

...

Tbh there should be a requirement to pass a test proving you read Capital before even posting here

Tell newbies about Bob Avakian, let them stew in the idea of dialectical materialism, it's fun, just join any Trot group, play buzzword bingo share theory
>when you realize oh no, none of this is revolutionary activity, in fact our actions are perpetuating the cycle of Capital

then flash fry them with like Jean Baudrillard

The manifesto is dubious in quality and full of outdated demands which is why you get liberals saying "I READ TONS OF MARX AND ITS ALL SO OUTDATED", and Kapital is WAY too big to expect them to read withy no prior knowledge. Wage Labor and Capital and Value, Price and Profit, and Critique of the Gotha Program will give them a MUCH greater background and won't overwork them. However, I always start them off with Breadman, because a ton of libs have the bizarre idea that capitalism is just the natural way of things, has existed since the dawn of time, and is followed by all life, animal or otherwise.

No, its better to show them examples of how communism worked well in practice.
Oh wait you dont have any of those.

o shit i didn't think of that

I didn't know they made short shorts that short.

I think it is always better to start small, with a very simple introduction, and forcing them to read Marx is pretty dumb.
ABCs of Socialism by Jacobinmag on the other hand is really nice introduction to socdem, and from that point they can go into more radical views.

You actually started with "kapital"? Dude, that was a fucking meme.

>Yet, ironically, it was not the battlefront in the Great War that generated the revolutions of 1917-18; it was the rear, where hunger managed to do what the terrifying explosives, machine guns, tanks, and poison gas at the front never quite succeeded in achieving – a revolution over issues such as bread and peace (in precisely that order). It is breathtaking to consider that, after three years of constant bloodletting, mutilation, and incredible daily fear, the German strikes of January 1918 that had the pungent odor of revolution actually subsided, and the German workers remained patiently quiescent when General Ludendorff's spring and summer offensives of that year gained substantial ground from French and British troops in the West to the "greater glory" of the Reich. […] It speaks volumes that, despite the horrors of the Great War, the masses went along with the conflict until it was completely unendurable materially. Such is the power of adaptation, tradition, and habit in everyday life.
>My purpose is, rather, to suggest that the problems that may well turn most of humanity against capitalism may not necessarily be strictly economic ones or rooted in class issues.
What did he mean by this?

Ideology is a powerful tool and can delay people's thirst for change, only with literal large scale starvation ideology reach its limits when it comes to keep the statu-quo in place.
So people could keep supporting capitalism and their own economical oppression as long as a critical mass still have just enough bread.
Or, on the other hand, Bookchin maybe thought that if ideology is a very powerful tool to keep the masses in check, it could be also a powerful tool to make them move before the massive collapse?

start with the greeks

But that's fucking dumb. You expect people who take everything up the ass until they're literally starving to suddenly risk their lives whilst things are still good just because you told them a cool story?

The manifesto has some really good bits, but the 10-point program and some other portions give people the wrong idea about what we actually want. Probably best to read Wage Labor and Capital first.

The point is that people accept to take barbed dildos deep in the colon because of a cool story (Living in a police state is ok because it's to defend Freedom™), so with a cooler story it could be possible to make them rise up.
Unless considering ideology can only be a force of inerty rather than change. I don't know if anyone ever demonstrated that.

Don't you find it odd that conservatives stories always happen to be "cooler", except when the masses' situation is "completely unendurable materially"?

Couldn't it be explained by the fact that the "coolness" of a story depends not on the insight of the person who invented it, but on its accordance with the material conditions it emerges in?

kill thyself

Nah. We should just introduce them through Lasalle-Kautsky thought and the eternal wisdom of Sanderism-Uyghurism.

the most normie tier essay is "Principles of Communism" by Engels. Better than communist manifesto.

fuck right and same with human nature

O SHIT WE DIDN'T THINK OF HUMAN NATURE

Yeh you really can't start with Capital its intermediate-Advanced leftism although its a foundational text,just purely for size and density if you aren't already pretty invested or have an academic background, specifically in philosophy or history (or subjects around those areas to a high level, or you are just a brain,) then chances are you won't make it through or it won't be worth you making it through cos you won't get 60% of it

The USSR though I have big critisms of the USSR, Cuba, Revolutionary Catalonia , The Ukrainian free territory, Rojava (currently existing today), Nicaragua, Chile before the coup,The Honduran Campesino movements(currently existing today), Mexican auto-defensa co-operative farming collectives (currently existing today) Pirate Ships during the golden age, the early medieval city commune. The better part of Germanic barbarian society and most other native European cultures, black panther community survival programs including drug rehabilitation, free breakfast for children and gang outreach.

How long have you got cunt, hows about you name one that didn't work

I found Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher a good entertaining entry pill - despite its ultra-left rubbish in the middle part, with which I obviously disagree with.